The oldest part of the house dates from the 17thC. A fashionable addition on the garden side was added by the 1st Earl of Sheffield who gave the house to his daughter, Louisa, on the occasion of her marriage to Sir Henry Clinton (later one of two generals who served under Wellington at the Battle of Waterloo) at the end of the 18thC.

Lawn and Park. The simple lawn and parkland beyond the ha-ha reflect the 18thC façade of the house. The lawn is planted with a double row of horn-beams trained into formal box shapes 20 feet high to accentuate the proportions of the house. The longer grass on either side has been planted with snowdrops. Beyond the ha-ha, the land has been landscaped by Julian Treyer-Evans. A path leads through trees to a column on a distant hill. Christened rather grandly the Deer Park, in the winter it offers hordes of deer lush grazing amongst 200 native trees, planted in 1996. In summer the cattle graze peacefully.

To the north a series of formal enclosed gardens lead off the yew walk. Like a rambling old country house with its intricacies and irregularities, these inter-linking enclosures and walks have gradually evolved, making a garden in the 17thC style.

The visitor should start by looking at the Double Herbaceous Borders. These echo the style of the late Victorian gardens, when many hitherto unknown plants were introduced from North America, China and Japan. The colours were inspired by the sight of sheets of larkspur and monkshood seen while on a canoeing expedition in the Rocky Mountains. Delphiniums, phlox and monkshood and drifts of iris, crambe cordifolia and arums are set rhythmically between yew and box.

Terminating the herbaceous walk is the stone figure of a muse set in a brick arch which is smothered each year in white Clematis (alba luxurians). At right angles to the herbaceous borders is the Cloister Walk (inspired by a Pre-Raphaelite painting). The arcades are wreathed in white roses (Rambling Rector, Dundee Rambler and Longiscuspis) and later with the purple-leafed vine (Vitis vinifera purpurea) and purple clematis (C. viticella purpurea plena elegans). Beneath them are borders filled with Regale lilies, white astrantia, geraniums and hostas. Beyond, glimpsed through the arcades, lies the wild garden, the kind of bejewelled flowery carpet of white marguerites, cuckoo flower and other native flowers which the Pre-Raphaelites so admired.

You are drawn down the cloister walk to a small gate leading to the park but on the way the steps on the left will lead to the Herb Garden, divided into four squares by intersecting paths with a fountain basin in the centre. Knots of 17thC design fill the spaces at the corners and sweet briar roses grow at the back of the narrow beds. Roses grown here include Rosa gallica versicolour (Fair Rosamund). Every plant in this part of the garden is aromatic, including meadowsweet, Indian physic, sweet cicely, lovage, lavender, hyssop, lemon balm and garlic chives. Features include turf seats in Mediaeval style, a ‘cut out view’ of the park through the beech hedge and pleached lime walks (which were favoured in 17thC gardens). The paths of camomile are designed to release their fragrance at the touch of a foot, or in earlier centuries, the hem of a long dress. A gargoyle in the bow-shaped wall is partly hidden by the ornamental vine.

Having circled the herb garden, turn left to the Potager. The design follows the plan of a church, the wide path of the ‘nave’ leading through the centre of a series of beds laid out as in a Mediaeval garden. Arches covered in cordon apples frame views of colourful vegetables and flowers. There are standard gooseberries in box edged squares, matacuta sweet peas, and trailing marrows trained over bamboo tunnels. Espalier greengages and edible hemerocalis flava divide this from the second garden, the ‘chancel’, centred on a sundial surrounded by segmented beds and paths leading to bowers covered in sweet peas or beans.

Return to the Pear Walk, underplanted with spring bulbs and later Martagon lilies. At the far end the iron gate leads to a short woodland walk where roses clamber high into old trees.

The way back to the formal gardens is along the young fastigiated hornbeam walk, through the Wild Flowers, noticing the chimneys of the house through the arches, but before reaching the herbaceous borders turn left into the Rose Garden, slipping past the hornbeam stilt hedge. A dovecote stands in the centre of a formal arrangement of beds with a view of the house behind. 19thC roses are trained high to form green pillars smothered in fragrant blooms including Charles de Mills, Frau Karl Druschkt, Chapeau de Napoleon, Empress Josephine, and Compte de Chambord.

Beyond the arch in the yew hedge a young mulberry tree stands in its own lawn, but to the right the 20thC Swimming Pool Garden can be found through the gate in the wall. An arcade of apples underplanted with campanula encircles the water and pollarded pawlonia give a jungle effect.

In 2001, the Cistern Garden was created, yew hedges framing a series of pools leading to a 17thC Italian marble cistern. Sadly, the floods of 2001 introduced the dreaded Phytophthora fungus and the yew succumbed. Replanting with holly will, we hope, restore the picture.

On the way back to the lemonry, where tea and chocolate cake await you, visit the shady glade beneath the lime trees, and the small apple orchard underplanted with massed crinums.

We hope that you enjoyed your visit.